On May 25 we will host the WSJ Pro Cybersecurity Forum in London. Speakers include U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, Cheri McGuire of Standard Chartered and Uber’s John Flynn. Check out details here: http://cyber.wsj.com/

Financial institutions in Europe are ramping up their efforts to tackle human trafficking with the launch on Wednesday of a toolkit to improve coordination of data sharing and increase the odds of identifying suspicious activities linked to the activity.

Approximately 21 million people are victims of exploitation around the world, with proceeds from the enterprise estimated at $150 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization. Much of that money passes through regulated financial institutions as it needs to be laundered back into businesses, which places banks in the front line of defense as they can screen account holders and identify transactions and patterns potentially linked to trafficking, said Sven Stumbauer, global anti-money laundering and sanctions practice leader at AlixPartners. The new toolkit launched by the European Bankers Alliance, which was brought together by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2015 and counts some of the largest financial institutions in the region as participants as well as non-government organization Stop the Traffik and Europe’s law enforcement agency, Europol, aims to do just that. “The Alliance’s financial indicators are far more extensive and tailored than any developed before in Europe, and we believe will have a significant effect in strengthening the ability of financial institutions to disrupt these crimes,” said Nick Lewis, group head of integrated intelligence and investigations at Standard Chartered PLC, in a statement. A similar effort has been in place in the U.S. since 2014 through the U.S. Bankers Alliance, which published a set of red flag indicators that led to an increase in the number of suspicious activity reports filed by banks relating to potential cases of human trafficking, according to the statement.

In a research paper published earlier this year, the think-tank Royal United Services Institute found there is considerable willingness by global financial institutions to implement automated signals to flag suspicious activities related to human trafficking, but criminals operating in this area are nimble and the size of their transactions relatively small. By coordinating their efforts, chances of success are increased, said Neil Giles, director of Stop the Traffik. “It’s only through collaboration that we will generate the systemic disruption required to bear down on modern slavery and undermine the markets in which people are bought and sold,” he said.

New charges vs. Bertling. The U.K. Serious Fraud Office charged F.H. Bertling Ltd. and four individuals on Tuesday with conspiracy to pay bribes for freight-forwarding services contracts relating to the Jasmine gas field in the North Sea, which is operated by ConocoPhilips Co.

Crisis of the week. New week, new airline in the glare of a crisis. This time it’s American Airlines Group, which found itself in the spotlight after a flight attendant grabbed a stroller from a mother, almost hitting her toddler. With the woman sobbing, another passenger threatened the attendant, who responded aggressively. A video of the incident went viral.

American Airlines aircraft are parked at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 8, 2016.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

COMPLIANCE

Clayton approved to SEC. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved President Donald Trump's choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton, who hopes to turn around the decline in the number of public companies over the past 20 years, the WSJ reports.

SEC probes solar companies. Federal regulators are investigating whether solar-energy companies are masking how many customers they’re losing, person familiar with the matter told the WSJ. The Securities and Exchange Commission is examining whether San Francisco-based Sunrun and Elon Musk’s San Mateo, Calif.-based SolarCity Corp. have adequately disclosed how many customers have canceled contracts after signing up for a home solar-energy system, the person said. An SEC spokesman declined to comment. Representatives for Sunrun didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

U.S. regulator blocks shipping merger. The U.S. maritime regulator has rejected an application by Japan’s three biggest shipping companies to operate as a merged company while their transaction is still being finalized back home, the WSJ reports. An approval would have given container operators Nippon Yusen K.K ., Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha the right to share ships, port calls and negotiate with third-party service providers as a single company while their $2.7 billion merger is months away from being approved by Japanese regulators.

A worker walks on a shipping container at a container terminal in Tokyo on April 21, 2015.

China to start security reviews in June. China will launch new security reviews on foreign and domestic technology suppliers starting June 1, implementing a key element of its new cybersecurity law aimed at tightening state control over technology and information, the WSJ reports. The review will apply to companies that provide network products and services. As such, it will likely include companies such as International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft that sell hardware and software in China.

GOVERNANCE

China conglomerate now Deutsche’s biggest holder. Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has become Deutsche Bank’s largest shareholder after increasing its stake in the German lender to almost 10%, the WSJ reports. U.S. public filings show HNA raised its stake to 9.92% through C-Quadrat Asset Management (UK) LLP, the U.K. subsidiary of C-Quadrat Investment. HNA previously held a 4.76% stake in the lender, filings showed.

Etsyreplacing CEO. Etsy Inc. is replacing its chief executive and cutting about 8% of its workforce after the online marketplace reported a first-quarter loss and what it described as “a challenging February,” the WSJ reports. The Brooklyn, N.Y., company said that board member Josh Silverman would become CEO on Wednesday, replacing Chad Dickerson, who has led the company for the past six years. He will serve as an adviser until the end of the month, Etsy said.

REPUTATION

Women at Facebook allege discrimination. Last year, a longtime engineer at Facebook Inc. gathered data that revealed a controversial finding: Code written by women was rejected much more frequently than code written by their male colleagues, according to people familiar with the matter and screenshots of internal discussions viewed by the WSJ. For many female engineers at Facebook, the finding confirmed long-held suspicions that their coding faced more scrutiny than men’s. In a statement to the Journal, a Facebook spokeswoman described the initial analysis as “incomplete and inaccurate—performed by a former Facebook engineer with an incomplete data set.”

RISK

Marathon may shut down. Entrepreneur Jeffrey Aronin said a few years ago he hoped to eventually sell Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC, which he controls and runs, for billions of dollars, according to a person who heard the comment. Some employees have said they now expect him to shut down the company, the WSJ reports. His deflated ambition is a sign of the increasingly hostile reaction to drug companies that specialize in sharply raising the prices of old medications. Mr. Aronin did that over and over again for 15 years, most recently after Marathon won approval in February to sell a drug for muscular dystrophy in the U.S.

VW profit rises despite scandal. Volkswagen on Wednesday confirmed its outlook for the full year and reported a sharp rise in first-quarter profit despite the ongoing fallout from its emissions-cheating scandal, the WSJ reports. The German car giant said net profit for the period rose 45% to €3.35 billion ($3.66 billion), boosted by cost cutting and higher margins at its VW brand.

Investors flee Och-Ziff. Investors pulled nearly $7 billion from the largest publicly traded hedge-fund firm in the U.S. in the first four months of 2017, the latest sign of investor disillusionment with Wall Street’s most prominent money managers, the WSJ reports. Och-Ziff Capital Management Group said Tuesday that it received net redemptions of $4.8 billion in the first quarter and $2.1 billion from April 1 to May 1. That follows $8 billion in redemptions during 2016. Total assets at the firm fell 24% from a year earlier to $32 billion as of May 1.

PEOPLE MOVES

DOJ criminal division set to get new head. Brian Benczkowski, who oversaw the U.S. Justice Department’s transition team for the Trump administration and was chief of staff to former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, is expected to return to the department as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ. That unit handles many of the government’s corporate fraud and money- laundering prosecutions and would be on the front lines of the major gang cases that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has identified as a priority.

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